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Susan A. Buffett is the daughter and an heir to the estate of famous financier and left-wing donor Warren Buffett. She is a key player in the Buffett family’s support of numerous left-wing causes as the chair of the Sherwood Foundation and as board chair of the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, her father’s principal advocacy-philanthropy vehicle.

Early Life and Family

Susan Alice Buffett was born on July 30, 1953 in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the oldest daughter of Warren and Susan Thompson Buffett.

Buffett studied at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at the University of California, Irvine. Eventually, she dropped out and found work as an administrative assistant.[1]

She claims to have been in her early twenties when she found out that her father was a wealthy man. She claims to have first learned about her father’s wealth when she read an article in the Wall Street Journal.[2]

Buffett moved to Washington D.C. and married Allen Greenberg, a lawyer for Public Citizen, a left-wing group, in 1983. In the late 1980s, the couple moved back to Omaha, and Greenberg went to work at the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. Buffett and Greenberg divorced in 1995, but Greenberg remains president of the Foundation.[3]

In 1999, Susan Buffett started the Sherwood Foundation. It was seeded with $1 billion worth of stock in her father’s company, Berkshire Hathaway. The foundation began by focusing on local programs in Omaha focusing on early childhood education. It later began to expand to “social justice” advocacy and expanded its geographic reach.[4]

In 2006, Warren Buffett announced he was giving away his vast fortune. While Buffett reportedly contributed 85% of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett gave $1 billion each to the Sherwood Foundation and the other Buffett children’s foundations. [5]

Philanthropy

Sherwood Foundation

Susan A. Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation originally focused on early childhood education initiatives and programs. But the foundation later expanded its focus to include other so-called “social justice” causes both in Omaha and across the world. In 2016, the foundation donated $141 million.[6]

In order to receive funding from the Sherwood Foundation, recipients must agree to support certain left-wing values. In keeping with the Buffett family’s vast support for abortion rights, Sherwood recipients must support legal abortion and if they are a healthcare provider, they must allow women access to abortion. Recipients must support providing services without a religious bias or proselytization. Finally, the foundation has expressed a desire to “undo systematic oppression” and seek “economic justice.”[7]

Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation

Buffett serves as chair of the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. The organization is reportedly the largest non-governmental funder “reproductive health and family planning,” including pro-abortion policies and the provision of abortion and contraception.[8] STBF is a major funder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, its advocacy affiliate Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and a number of Planned Parenthood regional affiliates, with a 2012 analysis finding the organization had provided Planned Parenthood with $289 million from 2001-2012.[9]

Other Political Activities

Buffett is also a donor to Democratic candidates. In the 2018 midterm election cycle, she donated $1,650 to Democrats running for office.[10] In the 2016 general election cycle, she donated the maximum of $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. She also donated over $3,600 to the Hillary Victory Fund.[11] In 2014, she donated $5,200 to then-U.S. Representative Brad Ashford (D-NE).[12] In 2012, she donated $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She also donated $5,000 to the campaign of Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey.[13]

In 2018, Buffett financially supported a group helping to coordinate logistics for the March for Our Lives gun-control demonstration in Washington, D.C.[14]

References

Nededog, Jethro. 2017. “Susan Buffett Reveals The Surprising Way She Found Out Her Dad Warren Buffett Was Rich”. Nordic.Businessinsider.Com. https://nordic.businessinsider.com/susan-buffett-when-she-knew-father-warren-was-rich-2017-1/. ↩